Saturday, April 1, 2017

No hidin' from this joke master

I've never done an April Fools Day post because it's kinda cliché - just an excuse for people to post misinformation in hopes of getting a cheap laugh. But, it occurs to me it's a perfect day to give credit to music's greatest jokester - whose birthday is also today! That's right, the one and only Papa Haydn was born on April 1; and legend has it that on the day he was born, just after he'd seemingly drifted off to sleep at the end of a perfectly periodic lullaby, he suddenly cried out fortissimo. All the midwives burst out laughing.

Of course, the Classical Comic's ingeniously witty "surprise" trick would make a return in the famous slow movement of his Symphony No. 94. Sometimes I have my doubts and wonder if this particular joke is overrated, but I just found this fantastic recording which really reveals how forward-looking and modern he was:

No comments: